Can't Even Hold a Miserable Matchstick
by uzumaki rakku
Summary: to the heroes of war. Don't even talk about candles. Whatever. "Take me off duty. I don't care how you do it, just frigging do it. Say I'm crazy or something. I don't care." Inspired by but can't hold a matchstick to Catch-22. Part of Ode to the Nobody.


**AN: Another impulse fic, written very quickly. OI FFN, WE NEED MORE GENRES HERE.**

**My work can't even hold a matchstick to Joseph Heller's _Catch-22._ I apologise, but that book really did inspire and heavily influence this fic. =wry smile=**

**This fic also happens to have a potty mouth. Or at least, Yasuo does. I've toned it down a little, 'cause even though all that swearing is under the big bright banner of context and characterization and all, it isn't the main point of the fic.**

**Cynical, vulgar, and brief. Oh my, what a combination. Ain't it strange that C V B are happy little neighbours on my keyboard. =snorts=**

**_"Oh well, what the hell."_**

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_He's a pathetic coward who can't even hold a miserable matchstick – never mind a candle – to the heroes of war._

_Whatever._

_Not like he wanted to be one, anyway. That title was for dead men and lucky men._

_He didn't believe in luck. He only believed in unluck._

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"Let me go home."

"I'm afraid I can't do that, Yasuo-san."

The slow, hard grind of his teeth dragged across the silence.

"Take me off duty. I don't care how you do it, just frigging do it. Say I'm crazy or something. I don't care."

"Everyone's crazy here, Yasuo-san. I'm sorry but you'd have to find something better than that."

"I ain't needed here. There are plenty of other idiots who are fine with being _border guard_ when the enemy's going to attack and plough _right through us_ any moment. What's the point of border guards anyway?" He tilted his head insolently. "We're just some pathetic fodder. And we let those elite bastards sitting nice and safe back home know when enemy bastards are attacking, and if we die it means the enemy's strong enough for them to send a few upper-ranks over to deal with it. _I_ ain't needed here to be some stuck-up asshole's effin _doorbell."_

"Yasuo-san, your duty dictates that you stay here. My duty dictates that I keep you here."

"Look," he snarled, losing patience. "I don't give a shit about duty. The whole effing world is out to kill me so you'd better get me effing home before I die out there 'cause – "

"Now then, Yasuo-san. What could possibly make you think the world wants to kill you?"

He snorted, loudly. Derisively. "We're in a war, you dumbass, everyone's out to kill me even if they don't even know my name. And I don't care 'cause I don't wanna know their names either. I just want you to put that whiny voice and that sissy handwriting of yours to _use_ for once and take me off duty so I can go back home where no one's gonna be able to try and kill me. And if you don't – "

"Yasuo-san, it isn't nice to threaten people."

" – _will you shut it with the 'Yasuo-san'!_ – and if you don't send me back I'm gonna die out there which you won't care about anyway, but oh you _will_ regret it when I come back as a ghost and haunt the _hell_ out of this stinking place." He smirked, or tried to, but all that came out was a twisted, half-terrified-half-crazy snarl. "And I'm not gonna give you a single moment of peace. Or a single moment of peaceful piss. Whatever."

There was a brief pause, during which the mousy brown-haired man just stared at him with calm, flat disdain.

"Well? Are you gonna get moving or are you gonna keep staring at me with your stupid shit-coloured eyes? Eh? What? Some mangy old cat got your t—"

"You haunting me isn't going to be a problem, _Yasuo-san_, so your threat is ineffective."

"What, you actually gonna quit this lame-ass job of yours? Funny, seeing as it's the last thing they have for a disabled ex-genin like you. Pah!"

His jibe was ignored. "It is, after all, impossible for a ghost to haunt another ghost."

"...The hell?"

He stared, again, and suddenly felt like punching the man's face in. _(Not like he didn't always want to, but this time he _meant_ it. He was gonna punch that guy's face in. All the way in 'til he inverted the bastard's too-smug face so he'd be seeing _backwards._)_ He shook with fury, inexplicable, burning fury, and slammed his hands flat on the desk – the only thing which stood between them.

"You can't be _serious,_" he hissed. "You can't be _effing_ _serious_."

_"You can't believe we're gonna **lose** this war, can you?"_

There was no change in the other man's expression.

_"Fine,"_ he snarled, giving the desk a shove before letting go. Stationery and various documents rattled, rolling onto the floor.

"If that's what you think, _fine._"

He turned abruptly, and stormed away. "You'll wish you never doubted our village, _coward."_

"I'm not the only one." Was the cool reply. "Misery loves company. Apparently, so does cowardice."

He spat, and slammed the door.

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He stayed, and he was an idiot.

He stared at the explosive-tagged kunai sticking out of his chest.

_Well, shit._

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They won the war, eventually.

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boom.

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_Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand _**SNAP**_ goes that miserable matchstick._


End file.
